Quick takes on 5 films

Moana is an entertaining family film, the latest Disney animation. This one’s a good one. Moana is a girl on an island in the Pacific, who has grown up on her Grandma’s tales of supernatural demi-gods and other legends. Moana wants to travel the sea, but her father insists she stay on the island. When her island is threatened though, she does leave to find the legendary Maui, who has the power to help her restore her island and her people to their former glory. Strong songs, strong voice cast, and a powerful story all come together for a typical Disney story of strength, perseverance, and hope.

Born to be Blue is a loosely based biography on famous jazz trumpeter Chet Baker. Chet lead a hard life, mostly due to his life-long addiction to heroine. Portrayed here by the resurging Ethan Hawke, the story is told in an almost stunting way in the beginning, until picking up more linearly in the second half. Baker is extremely popular in the ’50’s but after a beatdown in 1966 broke several of his front teeth, he had to start all over and re-teach himself how to play again with dentures. He struggles to find a foot hold in a musical scene grown tired of his inability to be reliable, and promoters tired of his antics. Hawke is great as he has been over recent years, and I do like how the film does not sugar coat Chet’s struggle. In the end, the viewer has to decide if Chet really found success again or not, depending on how you measure such a thing.

I’m torn on the film Jackie. The movie, which is a “behind the scenes” look at Jacqueline Kennedy’s private life during and just after President Kennedy’s assassination, is great. It builds well, has an engrossing and captivating tale, and keeps you riveted all the way to its conclusion. The movie is told as an interview Mrs Kennedy is giving, with flashbacks to her famous TV White House tour and that infamous day in Dallas, and then the details of the funeral. Fascinating historically for sure. However, I have always had a hang-up on actors when they use a fake accent. I know it is a personal problem of mine, but it is hard for me to disassociate the character from the actor in these instances, and seeing Natalie Portman give Kennedy’s slow, deliberate speech forces me to suspend belief, no matter how well done it is (and it is done extremely well here). Kudos to Portman for pulling it off, but still hard for me to get past it.

To be honest, I was fairly bored with fully the first half to two-thirds of Sing. It wasn’t all that engaging and seemed strongly geared for the youngins. But the ending is as uplifting and engrossing as you could hope for. An animated film with a very strong cast, this one is about a theater owner who holds a singing competition as a last-ditch effort to raise funds for his failing venue. The strong performers come from unlikely places with various obstacles to overcome. If you can stick through all the build-up, the payoff in the end is worthwhile.

I held off on watching Suicide Squad for quite awhile, watching it sit on my shelf until a fine layer of dust sat on it before finally putting it in this past weekend. It got such terrible reviews, and I am really pulling for the DC Universe movies to build something. Ultimately, I think this movie suffers the same fate as the previous Batman vs Superman film, it just tries to do too much. The backstory here is with Superman now dead from the previous movie in the series, the US government decides to pull together a ragtag group of psychotic villains to hopefully protect mankind from the risk of a superman-like supervillain. With a truly all-star cast, it should have been a great movie, and while I didn’t think it was nearly as bad as the scathing reviews made it out to be, there’s too much going, and it loses its focus far too regularly throughout the film. Personally, I would like to see some of the characters in this film get their own stand-alone (Marvel Universe style), but rough reviews and the cost of the cast may prevent that from happening. From the beginning, DC has gone about building their film series backwards, but hopefully they can get some feet under them before it is too late.